Moldea on Foster, Whitewater, and Impeachment

Please note that in this excerpt from his incredible December 5, 1998,
Salon interview by Lori Leibovich, author Dan E. Moldea ("A Washington
Tragedy, How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Firestorm")
names Major Robert Hines of the U.S. Park Police as the source of Jerry
Seper's false story in the December 20, 1993, Washington Times that
"Whitewater documents" were removed from Vincent Foster's office shortly
after his body was discovered. This is very curious because he fails to
name Hines as the source in his book, simply repeating there the Seper
claim of two anonymous Park Police sources and then debunking the claim
by obtaining the denials of all four Park Police sources, whom he names,
who had any knowledge of the matter of the documents. None of them is
Hines. The denials are very believable because the Park Policemen claim
that they knew nothing of the Whitewater matter at the time that Seper
was allegedly fed his information, and there is no good reason why they
should have known.

Bear in mind that Moldea is quite correct when he says that the
revelation of the Whitewater document supposed mischief was what got the
special prosecutor onto the scene in the first place. So the process
that has led us ultimately to the impeachment of the president is
founded on an initial lie, and players in the game like the writer Dan
E. Moldea seem to be unable to keep all their lies straight.

This is indeed curious business.

How did you go about investigating Vincent
Foster's death?

I did what no one else had done -- I went to every
single cop involved in this case -- whether he was
involved in the crime scene search or part of the
official investigation. I saw all the crime scene
photographs and I saw all the autopsy photographs.
I don't think I was prevented from seeing any of
the documents I wanted to see. I am a bona fide
crime reporter with great -- and loyal -- sources in
law enforcement. I've been doing this for 24 years
and you get to know people.

And from those sources and documents it was
clear to you that Foster committed suicide.

Yes. It was a no-brainer. But I also looked into the
aftermath of the suicide: the search of Foster's
office, which led to the discovery of the torn-up
note, which led to the interviews that law
enforcement conducted, which confirmed, finally,
that Foster had, in fact, committed suicide.

What was the chief source of the doubts and the
resulting conspiracy theories?

Some mouthy Park Police official, talking about
things he knew nothing about, starts to serve as a
source to some reporters who start publishing
front-page stories saying things like "[former White
House counsel] Bernie Nussbaum had removed
documents from Foster's office on the night Foster
killed himself," which is flat-out not true, even
though it appeared on the front page of the New
York Times. This teed up the ball for a lot of other
things -- for instance, the next allegation, that during
the official search of Foster's office three piles of
documents were found, which is true, but that
Foster's attorney Jim Hamilton wound up with the
Whitewater documents, which is completely untrue.
Again, the ball is teed up and everyone starts
swinging away at it, and it eventually leads to
Congress getting involved, saying the media is
raising all these questions. And it all started with a
Park Police source, Major Robert Hines. And what
he said was false.

Why did he say all this?

I don't think there was anything nefarious here; I
think he was being approached by reporters and he
wanted something to say. I doubt that he realized
that he was giving false information, but the fact is,
he was. When he starts talking to Reed Irvine at
Accuracy in Media, and Christopher Ruddy, who
was then at the New York Post, he tells them that
there is no exit wound in Foster's head, which was
also untrue. This tees up the ball for the conspiracy
people to come in. After this information starts to
get printed, Hines starts to come back and say,
"Hey, I made a mistake here." But by then these
people are off and running. (end of excerpt)

"These people" ultimately end up being the U.S. Senate trying a U.S.
President for law-breaking, but it starts with this revelation of
doubtful origin which causes Robert Fiske to be appointed, who is then
replaced by Kenneth Starr, and the rest, as they say, is history.